Storyteller and Author
It’s unusual for me to spend a whole day on the moor at the moment, with the new show and other projects bubbling away in the pot. But on a rare sunny day this week, Emma Cunis (Dartmoor’s Daughter) and I determined to visit Cranmere Pool, and that demands commitment.…
Do you know that a mermaid might choose to bless or curse you? Have you seen the ghosts of smugglers and wreckers that stalk the south coast of England? Do you follow the old wisdom, and do you know the day of the week you must not set sail? England…
Once upon a time, a storyteller, an artist, a film maker and a photographer began a great storytelling adventure. As these four travellers roamed across the wild and woolly landscape of North Devon, sharing their craft, a raggle-taggle of magical helpers joined them: firebirds, hag-trolls, farmers, giants, talking trees…. In…
In Plymouth, past the Barbican and past the point where the Mayflower is meant to have set sail, along the coast towards the Hoe beneath the harsh angular stone of the Citadel, look out over the ivy-clad concrete wall to the sea, and then look again with your eyes tuned…
Every place holds its own stories: echoes of people, wildlife and the land itself. Widecombe-in-the-Moor looks like a rural idyll, a thriving small community tucked away in a Dartmoor valley surrounded by heath and moor and woodland. Any student of Devon folklore will know this place holds some great stories,…
I’ve been very privileged to work with High Bickington Primary School recently. High Bickington is a small village in north Devon where the church is next to the primary school, with a special doorway between the two. Following my work with the school on community trails and landscape, with Devon…
Elm hateth man, and waiteth Till every gust be laid. Rudyard Kipling (1906) There’s a particular book on my bookshelf that’s been high in my mind recently. Written by Gerald Wilkinson and published in 1978, it’s called Epitaph for the Elm. I found it in a little bookshop in Norwich in…
Stories will find you, stories that fit the energy of the time. Or is it the other way around? As part of South Devon Storytellers we have been working through the Norse myths, transforming the self-consciously sparkly Totnes into a world of ice, gods, giants and mountains. On Monday I told…